Given the political brinksmanship and general gridlock these days, this is not an unreasonable thought. It is, however, wrong.

Individual congressional offices tend to be responsive to the needs and desires of their constituents. That doesn’t mean that they will go to the mat for every voter’s desire, but it does mean that they listen and have a system for processing and recording feedback. They really do. I’ve heard this from a variety of congressional staff on both sides of the aisle.

The Congressional Management Foundation has done research [pdf] on this which backs this up. They even surveyed professional staff about which forms of communications from constituents makes the biggest impact. You’ll see that it generally correlates with the amount of time a constituent has to invest: